Corporal's guard


Also found in: Wikipedia.
a detachment such as would be in charge of a corporal for guard duty, etc.; hence, derisively, a very small number of persons.

See also: Corporal

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by G. & C. Merriam Co.
References in classic literature ?
Poorly planted, by politics, illy attended, by politics, decimated and many times repeatedly decimated by the hostile forces of their environment, a straggling corporal's guard of survivors, they thrust their branches, twisted and distorted, as if writhing in agony, into the air.
View in context
Senior Army leaders will threaten to commit seppuku in protest at being reduced to a corporal's guard. Unfortunately, the U.S.
New model army
Staffed by a mere corporal's guard and kept firmly under John L.
Industrial unionism as liberator or leash? The limits of "rank-and-filism" in American labor historiography
Dictionary browser ?
Full browser ?